neelton's blog: Following FTP + Stars Grind

This post has been edited 4 time(s), it was last edited by neelton: 05.07.2011 00:30.

Greetings guys & gals!

First of all - please don't mind the ruhtarded name of the blog - I just couldn't think of anything else that is different and still at the same time can relate metaphorically to the actual content. I might switch it if I think of something better later on

I am from the Bulgarian PS community and I have already started a blog there, but since I really love all the peepz on the English board and I read tons of stuff here even though I`m not posting a whole bunch, I thought I could make a parallel one here.

About me
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I`m from Bulgaria and I study IT stuff - 2nd year now. I like watching movies, TV series. I also like all kinds of sports - some my favourite ones are athletics, skiing, tennis and also I myself do ski and play tennis too. Other than that I love hanging out with friends.

Since this is the opening post I guess I should include the probably boring to a lot of you 'history' part so there goes:

Poker History
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I started playing poker probably about a year and a half or two ago. Like almost everyone it was just play money games and freerolls. I would occasionally win some $'s from the freerolls but since I was playing mostly for fun and pleasure I didn't care much to read about poker strategies or other ways to improve my game. Nevertheless, even when I look back now, I believe the experience from those endless hours spent playing freerolls have been an important part of my 'growth'.

So anyway, after playing for a few months I kind of lost interest and dumped the game for a long time. Then December 2008, a friend of mine told me about PokerStrategy and i registered an account, completed the test, but since I wasn't sure which poker room to choose and didn't have the time to play poker then, I postponed my starting capital deposit with 6months.

This is when I actually started playing poker more actively. In June 2009 I picked a poker room and started playing SNGs there. Obviously, I read all the articles and watched some videos and by simply following the BRM suggested, I easily beat the $1's and some time afterwards the $2's. Of course given the fact that I was making baby steps, I didn't put in much volume at first - started playing 2 tables, then went up to 4 in late August and so on.

I didn't have that much time to play and had some rough patches but long story short: After playing normal 9man SNGs at $1, $2 and $5 and switching to $5 45man's where after hitting a bad downswing i decided to try out the turbos ($6.5 turbos) and the swing continued so went down to $2.25 for a short while. Nonetheless, I took a more aggressive BRM and slowly and carefully grinded out from $300 to $600 in a span of 2months but a mere volume of 200-300 $6.5 SNGs.

In November, after I purchased HEM, I started playing more and more and have been gradually increasing my monthly volume - unfortunately January and February have been full of exams at uni so that poses somewhat of an obstacle to fully put my time into the game. This is bound to change very soon - my last exam is on Feb 19th.

In the meanwhile from the very beginning in June 2009, my returning to poker coincided with the official opening of the Bulgarian PokerStrategy Community. Thanks to a help of a friend - Raisolution, I became a freelancer for our community and started dubbing the educational videos, being taken under DessiP's wing, and until now I`m still doing it and I dare say I quite enjoy it.

This history part got mighty long so I`m gonna stop here.

I`m still grinding the $6.50. Right now I`m 9tabling and I should be ready to try out the $11s within a week tops.

I`m secretly hoping I`ll get those 70-80BIs back on a higher limit...
...but I wouldn't count on it.

Mid term Goals:
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Possibly become $22's regular by June 2010.

Spend time on improving my MTT and MT SNGs skills.

Maintain Ironman status on Full Tilt Poker

Read some poker books, besides Moshman's.

I will not engage into giving any long term goals for now.

As far as short term goals - I have to finish reading Moshman's book, get those $50 i`m short to start trying out the $11s and hopefully be able to maintain at least 500 SNGs per month. I`d prefer somewhere around 700-800 but probably won't happen during the first month I`ll be playin $11s until I get a better grasp of the regs so that I can afford to think less about hands and play more tables.

I'd also very much like to find someone to sweat it up a bit with. Preferably of course someone playing $11s or higher. If anyone's interested, please let me know.

So much for this endless post. If you have read it to that point - well you should go back to play now thats a long enough break!.
As I said in the beginning, I love reading most of the blogs here (mostly the SNG ones obviously, although TTs blog is just pure pwnge) so I`d be really happy to get to know you guys better - <3, lennonac, Tim64, AugustusCaesar, miskokvo and others.

Thanks again for reading and good luck at the tables! If you have any sorts of questions, would like to discuss something with me, or just to say hi, I`m here
.

Here's a cool video
:

P.S. The title of the blog is from the unknown independent movie Avatar. Although not a unique storyline, the movie itself I found quite enjoyable, especially in an IMAX.

This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by neelton: 23.02.2010 14:54.

Greetings!

Well, all my exams are history now, I failed the last one, so that means at some point I`ll have to study some more in order to get it over with, but it is not on my agenda as of right now.

As far as poker - unlike January, February has been kind to me so far. I started off with standard results then at some point I had a 1-day heater which then diluted into a short 0%ROI period and at that point I already had enough moniez to have a go on the $11s.

I was lucky enough so far to start them off with a heater and I must say that's the first one I've ever had. I can tell you - it feels good - it's the first time I`m running above EV for longer than 10 tourneys
. Whether it will end soon or not, I`m prepared to face the following downswing and I only hope I`d manage to limit it, so that I don't have to go down to the $6s. Although, If I have to, I will, of course.

I played the $6s in sets of 9, but the $11s I`m playing in sets of 6 in order to keep a sharper eye on the opponents and take notes - after all it's a brand new limit for me and I`m still unaware of all the regs and fish playing it.

I am happy with my game and of course I`m really happy to be in a heater, although to be perfectly honest, I'd rather have really tiny heaters + tiny downswings, instead of going up n down like a 7G roller coaster.

I still find myself occasionally making really bad decisions even though I am fully aware of that, while making them and I usually do it, influenced by another player's image. (i.e today I made a TERRIBLE call @BvB w AJs vs a 85/25 open shove for ~40BBs. I should really restrict myself from doing such tempting calls. Of course, don't get me wrong, that's probably the 2nd time I've done it for the month, it's not like i make such moves on a regular basis)

February Goals:

Play 350+ SNGs - [ + ]

Post more hands for analysis [ + ]there weren't many that I really needed help with analysing

Reach Iron Man status on FTP [ + ] just bronze though

Beat the $6 SNGs [ + ]

Finish reading Moshman's book. [ - ] I read some, but not nearly as much as I planned to.

Play a couple of live tournaments [ - ] In my defence, I did try to sign up, but there were no free slots available...

I`m happy with the results, considering the fact I had exams throughout the first half of the month.

The month of March:
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I should be going on a short holiday from March 4. until March 11. so I will not be able to play at all during that period. Also Before I leave, my schedule for the first 3 days of the month is completely booked, so instead of setting unrealistic goals right now, I`ll do that when I return. I also still have no clue how much time I`ll have to spend in the university during this semester.

I, however, hope to be able to play about 500+sngs and maintain iron man status as well as to be consistent in beating the $11s. I`m also looking forward to doing some sweat sessions when I get back.

Btw, today is a holiday in Bulgaria. We celebrate it by giving martenitsa's to our friends and relatives. They symbolize the wish for good health and well being. If you are interested you can read more at wikipedia.

I got back from my ski holiday in Bansko, Bulgaria. It was pretty awesome - a whole week of just skiing and eating fine meals - either in some nice traditional restaurants or self-made grilled meat/steaks in the fireplace at the house where we were staying in.
Even though I had to get up at 7am everyday which was a pain, since because of poker i've gotten used to go to bed at 4am and wake up around noon, it still was well worth it.

Here's a couple of photos:

The resort is in the Pirin mountain and is up to international standards. In fact there are mostly foreigners there, especially during the high season - mostly English, Russians, Serbians, Greeks, Romanians and others.

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After this neat holiday, I have to go back to the harsh reality - university, work and poker

Fortunately I still have a theoretical chance to get the Ironman status again, even though I missed a ton of days. Depending on how much time I have, I might even try and go for Silver this time.

Here's my monthly goals:

Goals for March:
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Play at least 350 SNGs

Ironman Bronze

Continue reading Moshman

Keep working on my game

To have 1-2 sweat sessions a week.

I hope I can get some assistance with the last one from someone from here

I got back from my ski holiday in Bansko, Bulgaria. It was pretty awesome - a whole week of just skiing and eating fine meals - either in some nice traditional restaurants or self-made grilled meat/steaks in the fireplace at the house where we were staying in.
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This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by neelton: 23.03.2010 00:03.

@evertonroar
It wasn't my intention to be mean

@<3: Thanks! It's always nice to have luck on your side, especially when not dealing with absolutes, but with equities and %'s. It's always funny when you listen to someone analyzing a NL hand: "... He would c/r this flop most of the time, but some of the time he might float oop and then donk turn but some of the time might just do this and that and most ofthe time he will this and that..."

Anyway.

I haven't done an update lately, so just making a short appearance.

Nothing special has happened. I`m playing a few sets on a daily basis, just enough to keep up with my plans for Silver Ironman. I can't afford to miss not one day until the end of the month though, so I gotta be careful with that.

So far I've played 248 SNGs with 11% ROI, 38% ITM and 10% ev. ROI.

I`m happy with the results, although I still keep making some mistakes. Like for instance today I had a 14 OTM streak in a row and I didn't tilt, but I lost concentration for a split second while moving my tables around and made a -EV push (kinda close one though) and of course villain snapped and turned over KK to punish me.
At the moment i pressed raise all-in, I was like "wait, WTF, thats not for pushing... oh well, nothing worse can happen anyway.. neext"

Firstly, I`d like to apologize to anyone who may or may not have had interest in this blog when it started for abandoning it like that without any notice.

I`m back to playing poker after being away from this world for good 9 months. I was never really away literally - as I used to translate videos for PS until November 2k10 but I needed to distance myself from anything else poker-related. It sounds rather weird to just vanish like that for such a long time and here's my reasoning: One happy day in the end of March 2010 friends of mine asked me to partay and of course i went out and was ready to have fun. Once we sat in the pub everyone started ordering drinks and when the waitress asked what i wanted to drink, I replied "I can't drink alcohol, HAVE to play poker after that". I "had" to play because i was behind with my ironman status days. At this point i think I got scared that I`m getting way too serious while still playing baby levels of poker and felt kinda bad prioritizing it so much over my friends and social life in general.

After that day I decided to take it slow for a while and take a break for some time. My motivation had kinda disappeared. And so during April i played a handful of tourneys. Slowly lost desire to play, turned to some computer games to kill time, instead of playing poker. Also got pressed by university and work and it all dragged on and on. Occasionally I sat down at the tables once a month for a set of sngs just to try and relight the fire but it just wouldn't work.

The new semester at uni began, I had to luck to travel around during September and October - went to Italy and Spain. It was really awesome btw. I might put some pictures after. Rome is all about history and epic ancient culture. And Spain is pretty awesome as well. Was in Barcelona, Madrid and Sevilla. I gotta say I really liked Sevilla. Barcelona and Madrid are both great cities but a lot more Europe-like, whereas Sevilla is just different and way more exotic in general.

So anyway, I was considering starting playing poker again, but just couldn't get into actually doing it - at least i was building up lust and hunger for it!

Finally with the new year 2011 I figured its now or never. And here I am back - wanted to see how the first month after coming back would go - it could've been very disappointing and thus make me quit again, but nothing like that happened and I`m not planning on any such year-long breaks soon.

Enough with the blabla.

First 3 weeks of January I was playing the $11s, to get back in shape, cause I definitely had forgotten some range specifics and such and more importantly had lost the mindset for dealing with coolers/swongs etc. The last week of the month I started shooting the long desired $22s. So far it's not going perfect but I`m pretty satisfied with my game - I have minor leaks here and there but I`m working on fixing those. Now and then I might sit down playing some MTTs but I`m doing terribad on those so, I`ll keep them to a minimum for now, I`ll need to specifically focus on improving that but not just yet.

This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by neelton: 07.02.2011 01:58.

Gah! I already envy you (in the most friendly way) for living in Australia and now you have to rub it in that you've also lived in Spain?! Totally unfair.

Yesterday I was running hot at the ITM phase and had 41%ITM but 44% ROI, today its vice versa - 52%ITM and 13%ROI. But hey, I won't complain as long as its +ROI.

To wrap up the first week of February: 163 tourneys played (first four days still had exams!) First 3 days I was running terribad, with one day having lost 22BIs over 33 SNGs. It wouldn't have been THAT much of an issue if it weren't for the red line following right after the green one (usually my red line stands steadily pointing up). This time it went down head on. I reviewed the day twice in the wizz and excluding a few minor mistakes which i cannot go without and a couple of missed pushes at the end when I was soo frustrated that I`m gonna push into a monster yet again, everything looked just fine. So it's gotta be just the coolers and villain having always the top of their range.
Anyways, yesterday I had an awesome run(not even Godlike as I lost quite a few cruicial pots as a favourite) and had my most profitable day as of yet - 27BIs. so things basically balanced out by the end of the week.

Here in Bulgaria at the end of each semester we have 1 month which is just for exams. This time I was lucky to have all my exams pulled at the start of the month thus giving me roughly until the end of February absolutely university-free time. Looking forward to grinding the crap out of them $22s fish.

Plans for this year's ski week with friends are under way. However, we are really concerned that there's barely been any snow so far this season. Really hoping this would change during February as our idea is to hit the pistes in the beginning of March right after the World Cup round in Bansko, Bulgaria which will be ~ 25-28th Feb or something.

Just doing a short update - nothing special since last time - just grinding, trying to get Iron Man Plus days whenever possible - this also helps me put in the volume i want to, instead of start slacking after a couple of sets. On a different note - I`m beginning to worry when I see how many hands I have played against some of the regs..

I recently 'discovered' the PrankvsPrank channel on youtube - that couple is just lolz. Here's one of the more successful pranks
It also happens to be the latest one.

Another week has passed. Since I have nothing else to do right now, I've been playing a bit more. I`m happy with my volume so far. Have almost 500 for the month, hoping to push another 500+ until the end of February for a total of 1K. Starting to get used to grinding just enough for IronMan+ days.

Short summary for the week: 321 sngs and if it weren't for today's doomswing it would've been the perfect week. Today i got -25BI's so all in all wasn't my best day. In fact it was the most i've lost in a day so far
. But.. meh, what can I do? I haven't reviewed the HH yet but basically I was pushing into monsters and/or getting sucked out (the usual). I should've known the day isn't going anywhere good from the start, when I busted out the first SNG with KK vs 73 AIPF.

Haven't posted any graphs lately so theregoes one for the past week:

I`ll go cry now and search teh intarwebz for some shamans that may be able to make it snow, so that I can actually go skiing not rock-sliding.

I`m wondering how do other STT players deal with the grinding. Do you guys play set by set or when you bust out you reg a new one etc. Do you do all your sngs for the day in one big session or take breaks?

This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by neelton: 14.02.2011 16:31.

I used to play them in sets, finishing off all of the ones i've started before starting a new one, but lately I've been doing it by continuously regging new ones when i bust and I think it's way more efficient. Just need a bit more time getting used to it.